Shuttle Hopes: Majestic but Also Mistaken

A spacecraft leaving its pad is a metaphor of national inspiration. Not only is a moon rocket or a space shuttle named Challenger majestic, technologically advanced, produced at dear cost and entrusted with precious cargo. It is rising , climbing away from the sorrows and constraints of earth. The spacecraft carries along our secret hope that there is something better out there--a better place, a better way to live, a world where we may someday go and leave the errors of the past behind. Upheld by a hand of flame the spacecraft rises towards the heavens exactly as, in our finest moments as a nation, our hearts have risen toward justice and principle. And when, for no clear reason, the vessel crumbles, we falsely think the promise of America goes with it.

How else can we explain the sense that loss of the shuttle Challenger is a national setback of enormous proportions? Seven brave people died; but far greater numbers have sacrificed their lives in service of their country. Just last year 248 equally brave people died in Newfoundland as their flying craft also suddenly and violently obliterated itself. There is the monetary loss of about $1.5 billion--a serious amount, but less than has been wasted recently on canceled Pentagon programs. And there is the prospect of delays in space science; a disappointment, but the planets will still be there next year and the year after.

Of course, the explosion of Challenger occurred in full view of the world and was filmed, to be seen over and over again. Had the Newfoundland crash taken place with 100 network crews standing by, its impact on the public consciousness might have been different. There was the chilling coincidence that schoolchildren across the country were watching, told the launch signified their invitation to the future. This suggested an eerie (and again false) omen that their future held disaster. There was excellent work by television, but also television hype, especially the suggestion that loss of a spacecraft equates with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Presidents are supposed to be secured; space travelers know they may not return. The murder of the President can change the course of the country; the loss of Challenger, though sorrowful, will not. During the coverage Tuesday, the networks went overboard by constantly marveling that “people could remember where they were when they heard the news, just like when Kennedy was assassinated.” Of course they could remember where they were. The crash had only happened a few hours before.

And there was the presence aboard the shuttle of the first true civilian to attempt an ascent to space, Christa McAuliffe. While she knew there was risk involved, she could not have been expected to comprehend the full measure of that risk as did the others, trained astronauts. Had the crew consisted strictly of professionals, the loss would have seemed less poignant--for risk is often given lip service, but the reality of meeting fate is quite different. Many people may find it difficult not to think: How could they have let a civilian on board--a school teacher, a mother--unless it was safe?

Whatever else we may think of the death of Challenger, no one should have any doubt that it was, in every way, as safe as it could be. That has been the problem with the shuttle program from the beginning. And it remains the problem today. As it exits now, the best space shuttle NASA can build is still not a very good idea.

About six years ago, well before the first test flight of Columbia, I wrote an article saying that the shuttle was a bad idea. The article appeared in a small political magazine, Washington Monthly, and was widely reprinted, generating considerable controversy.

Something always struck me as odd about the response to that article. Those who favored big NASA budgets attacked the article as “against space,” which it was not; those who opposed big NASA budgets praised the article for the same misconception. So far response to the tragedy of Challenger seems to divide along the same artificial lines.

Backers of the shuttle are rallying behind the phrase “this doesn’t mean we should cancel the space program”--a straw man, since hardly anyone proposes this. Commentators are exaggerating the extent of the damage, saying that NASA has reached “an all-time low” or “is in deep trouble.” It is an ominous sign for the state of public debate that Rep. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who flew on the Columbia three weeks ago and who represents the Cape Canaveral congressional district, has already resorted to the weakest argument of all, claiming we must have shuttles because the Soviets want shuttles. Except in military affairs, nothing could be less relevant. If an idea is a bad idea, who cares if they copy it? And if it’s a good idea, we should do it regardless of what the Soviets do.

Neither polarized position of “for space” or “against space” reflects the real dilemma, which is this: Space launches are needed, but the shuttle program is a needlessly dangerous and expensive way to accomplish them.

Until Challenger, the program recorded many technical successes, but suffered three persistent problems.

First, cost. When the shuttle was being sold to Congress, NASA said it would be cheaper to use than expendable rockets, with each flight costing a sum that works out to about $50 million in today’s dollars. Flights are actually costing $100 million to $150 million each, depending on how one counts NASA subsidies--more, in many cases, than doing the same job with expendable rockets--and this excludes the cost of developing and building the shuttle. Factoring that $15 billion in, the shuttle becomes much more expensive than equivalent rockets, possibly (depending on how many shuttle flights eventually take place) two to three times as much. Though the shuttle can be reused, the bulk of its cost goes into heavy and expensive systems designed to bring the astronauts back, systems a rocket doesn’t need. That the shuttle turned out to cost more than rockets shouldn’t really surprise us. And it shouldn’t have surprised NASA.

Second, use. NASA predicted that the shuttle fleet would fly 50 times a year, nearly once a week. This year, 15 flights were scheduled, building toward a goal of about 25. Because the shuttle is complex, repairing and refitting it has turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Meanwhile, the demand for transportation of satellites to space is lower than expected.

Third, and most important, risks far in excess of gain. My 1980 article said that the ultimate flaw of replacing rockets with a space shuttle is that, “There is something noteworthy a rocket can do that the shuttle cannot. A rocket can be permitted to fail.” Risks are unavoidable in certain kinds of space flight. There was no way to go to the moon, for example, without taking a huge risk. But what is the sense of risking many lives, a quarter of the space fleet, a vast sum of money and national pride on the routine orbiting of minor communications satellites when such launches can be handled by throwaway rockets at a tiny fraction of the risk?

In order to achieve thrust sufficient to lift a reusable orbiter with a large crew and life-support systems and still have enough left over for a payload, space shuttles were taken to the boundary line of complexity and power. Orbiter main engines had to be designed around extremely high-pressure pumps using volatile cryogenic fuels that can detonate on contact with the air. These engines exploded or caught fire several times during testing. The boosters had to be designed around military-type solid fuels, more stable but which, once ignited, are very difficult to control.

On the evening of the Challenger loss, NBC News correspondent Robert Bazell quoted mission commander Francis R. Scobee as having long ago told him that he considered a shuttle disaster “inevitable,” given the complexity and high performance of the system. Bazell implied it was simply the nature of the beast. But if a disaster was inevitable, then we had no business building shuttles this way in the first place. A less grandiose--and less thrilling, but more reliable--design should have been chosen.

In the aftermath of the death of Challenger, President Reagan and many others have said that we must press on with space flight. To do otherwise would surely be to lessen the sacrifice of seven American heroes. But by the same token, to back the shuttle project blindly, as though it were a matter of “for space” and “against space,” would also denigrate their memory, by forcing others to take the same unnecessary risk.

Americans, because of our pioneer heritage, are sometimes more afraid of common sense than of danger. A big, complex shuttle project was a lofty goal. But just because a goal is lofty doesn’t mean it makes sense. What is needed now is to back away from the space shuttle as a means for routine space launches, perhaps restricting it to an occasional research role--while building a new generation of efficient throwaway rockets for satellite and cargo launches, plus a new, smaller and less fragile spaceplane for moving men and women into orbit when the mission truly requires it. Doing this--putting the space program on a more sensible footing for the next century--is the best way to honor Scobee, Smith, Resnick, Onizuka, McNair, Jarvis and McAuliffe.